Monthly Archives: February 2008

MEN miss a trick with Munich Tribute

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MEN special on Munich front pagePicking up on an earlier post about slideshows, I wanted to point out what I thought was a real opportunity missed by my local paper The Manchester Evening News.

Its 50 years since the Munich Air Crash. A plane carrying the Manchester United European Cup squad and a number of journalists crashed as it took off from Munich airport.

As you would expect the Manchester Evening News, being the ‘local paper’ pulled out all the stops.

The Manchester Evening News has published a 48 page colour supplement to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Munich air disaster
The special addition (which is available to buy) is excellent; Page after page of archive image, reflection and editorial.

But it was more a case of Munich forgotten on the web site.

Up until the day of the anniversary there was next to nothing. No special section, no multimedia, nothing that reflected the richness of content in the special and the value of collecting it together. (unless I can’t find it). Just a few stories and some plugs for the special

MEN special on Munich

Reaction to the special proved that the MEN obviously has a place in the hearts of Man UTD fans. As one fan commented:

Somewhere in my loft (or perhaps my dad’s loft) I have some old newspaper specials from the Manchester Evening News and learnt a lot of the history of Manchester United from them.

Another fan liked the content and cited the MEN’s tradition of quality specials:

Before you say cashing in, they have a history of bringing out these specials, I grew up on them in the pre-internet age – usually pictures of the olden days or the blitz.

No complaints about the content and an obvious level of brand recognition for this kind of thing . So why is it a wasted opportunity?

Own the story

MEN pagesThe supplement came out a full week before the actual anniversary. A great opportunity to build the story on the website, perhaps feeding in content to a special section that would rival the print special. This would have meant that the MEN would have had more ownership of the story.

As it was, on the actual anniversary, they did set aside the lead story on front page but with an aggregation of content. Nothing coherent. Over the course of the day it developed – the gathering outside of Old Trafford duly covered – but whilst it’s interesting stuff it could have been so much more.

It’s a real shame because there is some nice stuff in there. Good pics, nice stories and good comments. But you have to work really hard to find it and worse still the opportunities to comment where spread around the site.

Thats a shame because the paper has very active online community around football(plenty of comments on the few stories related to Munich on their site) and there is an obviously active Man Utd community online.

In 2005 the BBC reported:

Manchester United had 75 million fans worldwide, with 23 million in Europe, 4.6 million in the Americas, 40.7 million in Asia, and a further 5.9 million in South Africa.

Before and after

A special section would have been a constant draw for people – some evergreen content. And bearing in mind that the supplement came out a week before the anniversary, they could have owned the story. The Man UTD site is a good example of that. Now, before you point to all the money and access that they have I’m not saying it should be like for like. But I actually don’t think that they have much more content than the MEN

ManUTD’s munich section

I can only assume that there was some overriding financial reason – they are selling the supplement – or legal reason for this (MUtd have an exhibition at the moment). Perhaps the CMS just couldn’t give them a special section.

Whatever it is, I think the MEN where given an easy shot and they didn’t take it.

Newspapers missed their chance –

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 Wayne MacPhail at Rabble.ca bemoans the newspapers self-inflicted death:

Unfortunately for newspapers, the grumpy, grudging attitude I heard rumbling above my head ten years ago hasn’t really changed. There’s more fear now, more dread, more tired arguments about editorial authority born of baggage no one but newspaper people carry or care about. But there are few in the news business with passion, excitement and a true understanding of what it could mean to help a community be its own media, hold up its own mirror and gather around a fire it helps to build.

I used to be angry at the newspaper business for frittering away its birthright, its opportunity, its obligation. Now I just feel sad about the waste. Local papers could have provided free municipal WiFi, offered downtown offices where citizens could have told their own stories, recycled computers to local drop-in centres and used Flickr groups to gather hundreds of photos of local events.

Very sad indeed.

links for 2008-02-05

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Social media in the newsroom – a small example

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A fantastic series of articles by Robert Patterson on the online efforts of Californian outfit KBPS during last years fires.  I was going to type reporting efforts there but it’s clear from the post that it was more than just reporting.

In the first part Patterson outlines how they made use of technology. Making use of free tools like google maps and twitter they went all out to involve the community in what they did.

One thing in their approach I found particually interesting was how they used the homepage of the website

The station stripped everything off their front page to provide a clear focus on the ONE Story that affected everyone.

In the second part, culture comes under the spotlight. One bit struck me:

 I asked whether this was enough. Was it enough to have a small team?

“No not really. What was vital was that the team had a year to get to know each other, to gain the trust of the Senior Management and to “play” with some of these tools in their own time. If the fire had happened just after the team had been assembled, I don’t think they would have had the cohesion, the confidence and the knowledge to act as they did.”

I asked what she meant by “Play”.

“Well we did not have Twitter or Google Maps in our inventory, but the team had been playing with these tools on their own time. They all had their own blogs. Twitter had been discussed and in the week of the fire, we had planned a brown bag lunch to talk about Twitter. Leng, our manager, had played a lot with Google Maps and had been fascinated by their power. You can’t train for this – you have to hire for it.”

Play. Such a vital concept but it shouldn’t just be “in their own time”.

Even if you are not in the US or a small station there are some great ideas in these posts.

Slideshows from photo archive

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Colin Mulvany has a great post (and nice examples) on his blog highlighting the benefits of using your archive pictures for slideshows. It came off the back of a comment commending the Spokane Review for a piece looking back at 40 years of snow.

Colin points out how easy these things are and how popular they can become. And he’s so right.

It’s one of the first things I tell editors when we are looking at multimedia. You have loads of archive. Stuff that no-one else has and it’s easy to get online.

There are two key things to note with archive slideshows

  • They don’t need to be flash or soundlsides.
    The Spokane Review use Final cut pro and deliver in flash video. You could just as easily use Windows movie maker or Imovie. The content is still a slideshow.
  • They don’t need narration
    But text and music is a good idea. This is especially important if you use a video delivery as you don’t get the non-linear navigation you do with soundslides.

If you are looking for a first stage of training then what about this:

  • Check your diary and see what anniversaries are coming up
  • Go through the archive
  • If you are on a PC fire up Windows movie maker or imovie on a mac
  • Create a slideshow of your best images.
  • Link it to a follow up in the paper

As a follow up try another story but record an audio interview with someone associated with the story. It may even be the reporter, photographer or editor at the time.

Web 3.0 – MSM got no rep!

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 A great piece by Jemima Kiss over at the Guardian as she lays out her case that Web 3.0 is all about rank and recommendation

If web 2.0 could be summarised as interaction, web 3.0 must be about recommendation and personalisation. While the Tim Berners-Lees of this world work out how to make the language of the web function more effectively behind the scenes, our front-of-house task is to get stuck in and intelligently work these technologies into our businesses. It is not enough to understand the strategy behind these new applications, such as Twitter and Reddit – they rely on participation. Tokenism won’t do.

Josh Catone over at Read/write web agrees that the Web 3.0: Is It About Personalization?.

He echoes what Jemima says with a reference to a contest they held last year:

Last April, we held a contest asking readers for their web 3.0 definitions. Our favorite came from Robert O’Brien, who defined Web 3.0 as a “decentralized asynchronous me.”

“Web 1.0: Centralized Them. Web 2.0: Distributed Us. Web 3.0: Decentralized Me,” he wrote. “[Web 3.0 is] about me when I don’t want to participate in the world. It’s about me when I want to have more control of my environment particularly who I let in. When my attention is stretched who/what do I pay attention to and who do I let pay attention to me. It is more effective communication for me!”

A great definition. Decentralized me. Love it.

And according to Kiss, this web3.0 thing is good news for the MSM as well.

Above all, the most reassuring trend is that the values of credibility and trust are more important than ever in the ocean of information we have to navigate every day. The technology is not enough on its own, and that should be a comfort to editors everywhere.

I agree with that in principle but the heart of that question comes from what defines that credibility. How is that trust measured?

Looking at the habits of people on facebook and other social sites, I get the impression that trust and credibility are different currencies to the traditional, more paternal, idea of trust that we associate with the MSM.
How many people would recommend a newspaper as a friend?

So if Web 3.0 is going to be about recommendation the question is are the MSM investing enough in their rep now to be able to punch their weight in a world where trust and credibility means ‘just like me’.